Deep in the Guatemalan rain forest lie the remains of the ancient Maya city of Tikal, a sprawling metropolis of temples, palaces and pyramids.

Once a vibrant city-state of 100,000, Tikal now lies empty, partly buried beneath moss, ferns and vines. Once the cradle of Mayan civilization, the city has collapsed, but the Mayan race has never disappeared. The Great Plaza holds the Temple of the Giant Jaguar which rises 170 feet with a steep staircase ascending to a doorway crowned by a mammoth limestone block bearing the faint image of Ah Cacao surrounded by serpents. In 1962, archaeologists discovered the tomb of Ah Cacao under the temple along with 16 pounds of jade ornaments now in the park museum. Temple II, directly opposite, may conceal his wife’s grave.

As grand as it now, Tikal dazzled in its heyday. The city has been called the Manhattan of the Maya, and from 600 BC to AD 900, the city was a major force throughout Central America. Temple pyramids were painted blood red and bore massive faces of kings. Today’s overgrown plazas were covered in smooth white plaster. Raised causeways connected the city. There were ball courts and bustling markets. Ultimately, drought, famine and warfare may have caused Tikal’s collapse.

Tikal has 3,000 sites across a 220-square-mile park and far more lying beneath. The major attractions are within a 6.2-mile area and can be explored in a two-day visit. Since there are few signs its recommended that you hire a guide which can be obtained for about $20 a day — otherwise, you’ll most likely get lost. Important sites are often given boring names such as Complex N, Complex P or Complex Q. A guide will be able to point out the names and meanings behind the particular sites.

Archaeologists Unearth New Information on Origins of Maya Civilization

The Maya civilization is well-known for its elaborate temples, sophisticated writing system, and mathematical and astronomical developments, yet the civilization’s origins remain something of a mystery.

A new University of Arizona study in the journal Science challenges the two prevailing theories on how the ancient civilization began, suggesting its origins are more complex than previously thought.

Anthropologists typically fall into one of two competing camps with regard to the origins of Maya civilization. The first camp believes that it developed almost entirely on its own in the jungles of what is now Guatemala and southern Mexico. The second believes that the Maya civilization developed as the result of direct influences from the older Olmec civilization and its center of La Venta.

It’s likely that neither of those theories tells the full story, according to findings by a team of archaeologists led by UA husband-and-wife anthropologists Takeshi Inomata and Daniela Triadan.

"We really focused on the beginning of this civilization and how this remarkable civilization developed," said Inomata, UA professor of anthropology and the study’s lead author.

In their excavations at Ceibal, an ancient Maya site in Guatemala, researchers found that Ceibal actually predates the growth of La Venta as a major center by as much as 200 years, suggesting that La Venta could not have been the prevailing influence over early Mayan development.

That does not make the Maya civilization older than the Olmec civilization – since Olmec had another center prior to La Venta – nor does it prove that the Maya civilization developed entirely independently, researchers say.

What it does indicate, they say, is that both Ceibal and La Venta probably participated in a broader cultural shift taking place in the period between 1,150-800 B.C.

“If you’re not angry [about the assassinations of black Civil Rights leaders] you’re either a stone or you’re too sick to be angry. You should be angry. Now mind you, there’s a difference, you must not be bitter. Let me show you why. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So you said angry, yes, you write it. You paint it. You dance. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it — never stop talking it.”